


The Crow of Rome

by MrProphet



Category: Father Brown - G. K. Chesterton
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-22
Updated: 2017-04-22
Packaged: 2018-10-22 11:56:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10696527
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrProphet/pseuds/MrProphet





	The Crow of Rome

Inspector Padgett was struck by the ordinariness of the house as he knocked on the door. He had expected something rather more grand for the home of a confidence trickster.

“Or maybe that’s an important part of the trick,” he mused. “Looking like he lives a humble life.”

He pounded on the door again and it was opened by a small lady with a dark bun and a sober dress which did nothing for her looks. She was, without question, a housekeeper of the most steadfast and respectable type. Again, it was not what Padgett would have expected of the kind of desperate and ruthless criminal who could disguise himself as a humble priest to rob an old lady.

The housekeeper’s eyes were full of fear, however, and her voice was trembling when she asked: “Who are you, sirs?”

“Inspector Padgett of Scotland Yard,” Padgett replied. “This is Sergeant Cooper. We…”

“Oh, thank the Lord!” the housekeeper cried. “Please hurry, sir! I’m afraid that they are going to kill him.”

Baffled beyond words, but moved by the woman’s fear, which fifteen years of finely honed police instinct told him was completely genuine, Padgett did not hesitate. “Where is your master?” he asked.

“In his study,” the housekeeper replied. “Father Brown… and those terrible men!”

Padgett pushed gently past the housekeeper. “Leave it to us, Mrs…”

“Briggs. Miss Briggs.”

“Miss Briggs. Cooper! With me.” He strode off along the corridor and stopped for a moment. “And the study…”

Behind him, from the far side of a sturdy-looking, oak door, Padgett heard a heavy thump.

“Never mind,” he said. “Cooper!” He tried the handle of the door and then, when it proved to be locked, he put his shoulder to the wood. Although the door looked sturdy, it proved to be a broken reed, bursting open under the first good shove.

The study was a modest affair, with a small and unpretentious wooden desk and three large bookcases groaning under the weight of the hundreds of volumes which had been stacked on the shelves, piled on top of the cases and on top of each other. A little man in clerical robes was looking through one of the books; about a dozen other volumes lay scattered on the floor at his feet.

“Oh dear,” he said, apparently oblivious to the sudden and violent arrival of two burly representatives of Her Majesty’s Constabulary. “It’s not in this one either, but I’m sure that I put it in one of my volumes of hagiography. Perhaps the life of Thomas Aquinas,” he mused.

There were two other men in the room with the seeming-priest – who matched perfectly the old lady’s description of the ‘Roman Crow’ who had robbed her of her most precious heirloom – and they were rather more obviously of the criminal type. One was a great ox of a man. His brow was of a heavy, protruding set and his formal collar pressed painfully into a thick neck. The second was a weasel, if his comrade was a bull, with a fierce temper flashing behind his beady eyes.

“Who are you?” the weasel demanded.

“I am Inspector Padgett,” the detective began, but that was enough for the two men. The weasel fled towards the window, while the ox lumbered towards the policemen.

“Yes, Thomas Aquinas…” the little priest muttered. He turned and walked across the room, right into the path of the bull, who tried to stop his rush, slid on a fallen book and crashed to the ground.

Cooper ran to restrain the big man, while Padgett sprang past him to wrestle the smaller to the floor.

“I arrest you in the name of the Queen!” Padgett announced, “on a charge to be decided later. Cooper, summon a uniformed constable.” He locked his handcuff’s around the thin man’s wrists and stood up.

“Ah, well done, Inspector,” the little priest said. “I’m glad you came so promptly.”

“Oh, and you’re under arrest as well,” Padgett assured him.

The priest blinked owlishly. “Oh dear, that is unfortunate. May I ask on what charge, or is that to be decided later as well?”

“On a charge of theft,” Padgett replied. “You stole a valuable parchment from Mrs Maria Oldman at or about ten o’clock this morning.”

“Did I?” the priest asked.

“You did, and what’s more you have it concealed in a book of theology in this very room.”

“Have I?” the priest asked. “Well, well, well.”

“Indeed. We heard you talking to your accomplices here when you were trying to retrieve the parchment, no doubt for sale to some shady collector.”

“Ah, yes. I can see how you might have drawn that conclusion, but the fact is that the parchment of which you speak – a rather valuable piece, certainly – never left Mrs Oldman’s house. As I told Mr Fitch and Mr Bawdry…”

The detective started. “Fitch and Bawdry? Not Lucius Fitch and John Bawdry?” he asked. “The art thieves.”

“I can vouch for Mr Bawdry being that same John,” the priest admitted, “although Mr Fitch and I were never introduced. He is not a Catholic and never attended either mass or confession in my humble parish.”

“In your… Are you claiming that you are a real priest?” Padgett demanded.

“A ‘real’ priest?” the housekeeper demanded as she stormed into the room. “You’d find it hard to track down a priest more real than the Father,” she insisted. “Father Brown, are you alright now?”

“Oh, fine, fine, Mrs Briggs” he assured her. “Mr Fitch may be a trifle ready with a threat, but it’s Mr Bawdry he uses as a blunt instrument. He may be a bad man in many ways, but he’s a good Catholic in his heart and would never hit a priest; isn’t that right, Mr Bawdry.”

“It is, Father,” Bawdry confirmed in his thick, slow voice. “Though I’d have dented that copper’s pate if you hadn’t have stumbled into my way.”

“Well, that was rather the point of my stumble,” Father Brown assured him.

“Alright, now that’s enough of that. Turning on your former comrades won’t win you any favours,” Padgett assured Father Brown. “Just tell us where the parchment is hidden and we can all go down to the station.”

“Good luck to you!” Fitch snorted. “The absent-minded dunderhead has been searching through these books for almost an hour with nothing to show for it.”

“Again,” Father Brown explained, “that was of a purpose, as you might say. I felt that so long as you were sure I was about to find your prize you wouldn’t be tempted to put that switchblade of yours to use. Oh yes,” he added. “Mr Bawdry is the blunt instrument, but Mr Fitch keeps a sharper one about his person. While I have something of a knack for keeping such individuals from losing their temper, I rather feared that Mrs Oldman’s, erm, personality would rather tend to excite it. She can have that effect.”

Padgett shivered at the memory of her. “She can at that,” he admitted. “But if they’re not your accomplices then how would you know that they planned to take the parchment from Mrs Oldman?”

“Ah,” Father Brown said softly. “I’m afraid that I am not at liberty to explain that.”

“Well, then…”

“I told him,” Bawdry said. “I always make my confession before we go to see a mark.”

“You do what?” Fitch demanded.

“And so I was in a bit of a bind,” Father Brown explained. “I couldn’t go to the police or I would break the seal of the confessional, but I also knew that Mrs Oldman would never make a quiet, private sale of such an item; she also is a member of my flock and I know her well. Murder would have been likely, violence almost certain.”

“And so you stole the parchment yourself?”

“No, Inspector; merely engaged in a little harmless subterfuge in order to attract the attention of the police. I asked Mrs Oldman to show me the parchment and then concealed it. I knew that she would find it gone when Messrs Fitch and Bawdry came to call, and send the police to retrieve it even as they hastened to do the same.”

“Then where is it?” Fitch cried.

“In a Life of St Augustus on her library shelf,” Father Brown explained.

“In a… book of Hagiography,” Padgett gasped.

“Of course. Just as I said it was,” Father Brown assured him. “After all, lying is a sin.”


End file.
